The Alluring Language of Crows and Ravens

On a recent trip into the Alaskan wilderness I had the opportunity to listen and wonder about animal communication. I marveled at the thunderous breaths and splashes of humpback whales, though I could not hear their songs. Soprano seabird cries—the keer-keer of the murrelet, yodel of the loon, and tinny screech of the tern—combined with the base of sea mammal sounds and soft crashing of waves to create a truly wild symphony. In this orchestra, the raven was the soloist. From the spruce forest came a performance that was simply divine. A unique rendition of quorks, yells, trills, knocks, and rattles rang with clarity above the wild background. The raven repeated some phrases, perhaps to emphasize an important message, but variety is what distinguished the raven’s language from that of the typical seabird or sea mammal. As a life-long student of ravens, I recognized many of the calls. Most are directed to potential territorial intruders, but others signal common dangers or opportunities. Always, it seems there is something new to hear. Today it was a dripping noise, perhaps innovated by the composer raven as she listened to mussel shells clink against pebbles. As I listened I questioned why the raven should be so verbose.

A rich vocabulary is an advantage to any animal that must coordinate daily activities with social partners. This is the case for the raven, as each bird jointly defends space with a lifelong mate, quarrels and displays status with others that flock to rich foods, and warns all listeners of danger afoot. As Tony and I describe in our book “Gifts of the Crow,” the raven is the largest songbird and as such has a brain capable of continual song learning. New, useful, and intriguing noises can be memorized by the raven and imitated as near perfect renditions. These can be incorporated into a growing and individual repertoire. A complex social lifestyle, long lifespan, and songbird brain provides the motive and the machinery a raven needs to remain the most eloquent of avian orators.

The vocal nature of the raven allows it to thrive in a variable social scene. Speech also allows the huge ebony birds to engage humans. As I stood near the Gustavus, Alaska boat dock a worker rode his bike toward shore. The man let out a curious “Kraaw” as he peddled past a perched raven. The raven looked, but did not answer. With continued listening, some day he may reply. The Caesar, Augustus, purchased ravens that routinely spoke, hailing him with praise as “the victorious commander.” Some ravens at the Tower of London also speak to tourists, commanding those who stray to “keep to the path.” By investigating the reports of ravens and other corvids that imitate human speech, we have learned that they often use our words to get a desired reaction—recognition of a social partner, a startled drop of a favorite food, or the rounding up of other animals.

The sounds made by crows and ravens share many properties with our language, and above all this is what so captivates those who listen. The words they learn are associated with a particular meaning, and unlike onomatopoetic words, the sounds themselves have no inherent meaning. To a corvid, our words are arbitrary symbols. As we listen, we are also learning that their typical corvine calls are also often arbitrary. Ravens cluck like hens at the sight of a predator, trill at each other when ready to battle for a privileged spot at a carcass, and beg for mercy from a dominant. Some raven calls are even referential; the haaa call refers only to meat. There may be important information in the sequence of a crow’s caws or a raven’s quorks, but as of yet that has not been deciphered. The future may bring finer resolution. One thing we don’t expect to learn about corvid communication is an ability to converse about the past or future. As far as we know, all animal communication (other than our own) is about the hear and now. But for myself, and the worker in Gustavus, there remains plenty to wonder about whenever we hear a gabbing group of ravens. As we wrote in Gifts of the Crow:

“Talking crows reveal a part of their cognitive lives. To talk, crows must be able to form and replay memories. They confront the immediate with memory of the past. They dream. While we don’t claim that speaking crows really grasp the complexity of human language, they use our words to get what they want, which is remarkable. That a crow will learn and use a human trick reinforces the depth to which our species are intertwined. Crows manipulate, deceive, play, and converse with other species. They anticipate rewards and, to reap them, devise and carry out plans. When we overhear crows singing softly to themselves, we wonder if they derive pleasure simply by listening to the sounds they can make. So much of what we hear from crows or ravens is inexplicable. They ring like bells, drip like water, and have precise rhythm. They sing alone or in great symphonies. Some of their noise could be music.” (Copyright 2012 Free Press)

Take a good listen to the next crow or raven you encounter and let us know what you hear. Help us to connect sounds with meaning, so that we may continue to improve our understanding of the communicative abilities of smart and innovative birds.

Thanks for a wonderful article on these amazing birds. Corvids are a very interesting avian family, indeed.

That said, I was hoping to find a more detailed description of the crow who "herded" dogs on the U of Montana campus.

As a dog trainer I'm a constant student of play in dogs. So what struck me about the brief description given in the tease was that it sounded like the crow might have been engaging in a form of inter-species play, and not necessarily looking to dislodge food from the students, though that might have been a side benefit. What are your thoughts on that idea? After all, corvids seem to be the most playful (not to mention the most mischievous) of birds.

You might also be interested in a piece I posted yesterday about Spanish wolves who seem to prefer a habitat that shields them from human eyes even though food is scarcer there, the possible reason scrub jays will cache and re-cache their food when they're being watched, and how animals in general (and humans too) can feel when they're being watched. http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/my-puppy-my-self/201207/wolves-scrub-jays-the-feeling-being-watched

Yes, Lee I enjoyed your very interesting piece about wolves and the power of the human gaze. Crows also become increasingly wary when we stare at them. We completed an experiment that tested approach distances of humans to crows when the human averted or did not avert gaze, and we could approach much closer with averted gaze. It seems we all share a sense of being watched and the importance of detecting watchers is certainly influential to animal behavior.

For your question about inter-species play. Yes, this may be part of the reason why the crow assembled dogs. We detail many other cases of crow and dog play in the book, including reference to a nice photo that appeared many years ago in Science that showed dog play bowing to a crow. We made the point that for interspecies play to happen the two species need to understand each others' language, which crows and dogs certainly appear to do.

I paste here the full Missoula dog episode for you to ponder further. Thanks for your insights. John

(From Gifts of the Crow, copyright Free Press, New York)

"Here Boy! Here Boy! The phrase was emphatic and clear. Whistles along with the words conveyed the caller’s urgency and quickly attracted the dog’s attention. It was early morning and Vampire, a young dark German shepherd, was barking and lunging in her kennel outside the house, making a ruckus sufficient to rouse her owner, Kevin Smith, from a deep slumber. Kevin went outside and commanded Vampire to be quiet, but she ignored him. Strangely, so did the instigator who continued calling out to the dog. Kevin was preparing to reprimand his dog and confront an apparently presumptuous intruder into a cool, Missoula, Montana, morning, when from behind Vampire’s kennel, bounded a crow that continued to call and whistle for the dog. Doubting reality, Kevin spoke to the crow that approached him and the bird cycled through a series of well-rehearsed phrases. This crow had plenty to say, but raised more questions than it answered.
The crow left Kevin’s property, but it didn’t go far. It would become well-known visitor to the nearby University of Montana campus for the next several weeks. There, the 1964 spring quarter was in session and the talking crow was holding class on the University’s central green, The Oval. Perched low on a branch of an oak tree, the crow called to its pupils—dogs of every breed, size, shape, and color. A pack of mutts focused their attention on the crow from the base of the bird’s lectern. The crow had likely rallied them, as it had tried to gather Vampire, from the nearby neighborhoods and lured them to this learned spot. But why? The answer was suggested when the school bell chimed and the students spilled into The Oval, heading to their next class. The crow took off low, only a few feet off the ground, with its devoted crowd of canines in noisy pursuit. In and out, the black corvine Pied Piper threaded a mayhem of canines through the students, creating confusion, wonder, and collision. When the students got to classes, the dog-and-crow show stopped, and the bird again resumed lecturing from a low branch to its rapt class of dogs.
We have few further details from Montana because the talking crow disappeared as suddenly as it had arrived. We don’t know whether the crow ever got a reward for its antics, perhaps a dropped sandwich or bag of chips from a startled student, or where it learned to talk. Did it know what it was doing? Why did the dogs stay? Perhaps the crow stopped appearing because it migrated farther north or got within reach of one of its pursuers."

We live in the wild Canadian north and get to watch Ravens all year round. Crows migrate north during the summer and leave during winter when it gets too cold for their tastes. We have raven friends that seem to know us and our pets. One raven in particular has taken a fancy to our Collie dog. They play together, flying and running up and down our driveway. Once the raven brought another friend over and make all sorts of funny sounds like it was telling the other bird about our dog. Then they both started playing with her. She loves the attention and neither species seems to consider the other prey or a threat.

I have a crow that I throw food out for every morning now he follows me and is persistent that I'm on time feeding him/her on schedule. Also, this morning it came close to me on a branch in the tree and yodelled with clicking noises while stomping it's foot to the beat. It was very nice but I have no idea what it meant. I really like the crow n I call it baby and it likes it when I do. But I would love to know what the song n dance was.